She's a Bouncer!

"Stay back through the grid!"

Ruby and I had a great lesson last Tuesday. She has been very consistent with her stadium jumping (although xc gave us some issues recently due to my lack of confidence). This week, we had a new course to practice and a grid to start us off.

Grids are a great way to teach your horse how to jump. For Ruby, she has a tendency to get into a very long canter right before the jump and then dives down onto her forehand. Grids, especially this one with the bounce, forces her to snap up her front end quickly and keep her weight back where it should be.

This was (going right to left was the direction we took it) a one stride, bounce, bounce, two stride. Starting out, we had the first jump set and the others set to poles- as we went through, the other jumps were set one at a time. By the end, we started raising the last jump for height and continued to the other jumps on course. Ruby was super good, looking and trying to figure out what she needed to do- my job was just to get her there and stay out of her way...

Easier said than done. When we come up to a jump and the distance is in any way awkward, I have a habit of 'jumping for her' (basically, I get into 2 point before she actually jumps). This throws her off balance, throws me off balance, and throws Debi a teaching curve ball (lol, if she could reach she'd probably smack me- and I'd deserve it). A year ago, Ruby would have dumped me for riding like that, so to Ruby: thanks for putting up with my crap in that lesson.

This is why we practice :)